The birth of the Space Age in the late 1950s opened a new frontier for exploration. It also opened a new arena for law, since existing international laws and treaties did not cover launches or other activities in space. Given the backdrop of the Cold War, there was a concern by some that space could become a new battlefield between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1959, in an effort to keep space free of conflict, the United Nations established the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), which was charged with, among other things, considering the legal problems that could stem from space travel. COPUOS, through its legal subcommittee, led to the development of several space treaties.

The first international treaty that included specific provisions related to space was a nuclear test ban treaty in 1963. That accord specifically prohibited countries from detonating nuclear weapons...